CPS seeks 200 workers, $49.5 mil

Overloaded agency says it can't keep up with cases

Arizona's child-welfare agency is asking for 200 more employees to shore up a system overwhelmed by record numbers of abuse reports, foster children and backlogged cases -- a crisis exacerbated by persistently high worker turnover in the agency.

The Department of Economic Security's budget request for the coming fiscal year is the first public acknowledgment that the state's Child Protective Services is unable to keep pace with its growing caseload.

The $49.5 million request is also significant because it comes with the tacit approval of Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who uses departmental requests to form her budget proposal, to be released in January.

In addition to seeking more caseworkers, supervisors and aides, CPS wants to reverse a troubling shortage of foster homes, and the resulting increase in children housed in group homes and crisis shelters, by paying more to families willing to accept older kids.

The DES also proposes to resume the licensing of "emergency receiving homes," which accept children at all hours, but only until they can be placed somewhere else long term or can return to their families.

The department this week submitted a 14-page justification for its child-welfare budget request, detailing the steady increase in child-maltreatment reports, foster children and turnover rates, as well as the decline in foster homes. The request also explains internal changes designed to reverse the trends, including speedier investigations and recruitment of CPS staff and foster families.

CPS has been under intense scrutiny since last summer, following high-profile child deaths. Brewer created a task force, and several of its recommendations have become law, including creation of a new investigative unit. But DES Director Clarence Carter had rejected earlier calls for additional funding and support for families and caseworkers, saying he wanted to ensure that efforts to make the agency more efficient had been exhausted first.

Meanwhile, caseworker turnover reached record levels, topping 30 percent in the most recent report, as did a stubborn backlog of cases, still hovering around 10,000. The number of children in foster care continues to climb, topping 14,000 in August, as does the number of babies and small children in shelters and group homes. At the same time, thousands of cases are not being investigated and families are waiting for visitation, counseling and other services that could help them reunite.

Child-welfare advocates welcomed the potential for new CPS workers as a critical step toward reducing caseloads, which in turn could reduce turnover and improve outcomes for children and families. Caseloads in some offices are more than three times state and national standards.

But experts say it's only part of the solution and does little to keep the system's workload from growing. What's missing are broader prevention programs to help struggling families before their children come to the attention of CPS.

"The staff that they're asking for are incredibly needed and important," said Dana Wolfe Naimark, president and CEO of the Children's Action Alliance. "But there's no way we can keep up with a growth rate like that. We also know that ultimately that is not the best thing for kids."

If approved, the budget increase would almost double the last significant boost, when Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and lawmakers approved an infusion of $21 million during a 2003 special session. That funding paid for 220 new employees, most of them caseworkers, and increased the rate paid to foster parents.

In a letter to Brewer accompanying the DES budget request, Carter says Arizona's "current family foster home capacity is saturated." The number of foster homes began declining in March 2010 as the number of new foster homes failed to keep pace with those closing their doors.

As a result, more children were placed in emergency shelters and group homes. Nearly 2,000 kids were living in so-called congregate care in August, according to the latest monthly CPS report. Ninety-two of them were babies and children under 7 years old.

Research shows that if children can't stay safely at home, the best place for them is with relatives or in a family foster home. It also costs the state far more to place children in group homes and shelters, which average more than $3,000 a month per child compared with about $700 a month for a foster home.

The DES wants to increase the rate for families that care for children 11 years old and older. Its analysis shows such children are 10 times more likely to be placed in a group home or shelter than younger kids.

But surveys of foster parents have consistently shown that their primary concerns -- and main reasons for closing their doors -- aren't about money but rather the inability to get help, including effective mental-health treatment, for the children in their care.

Kris Jacober, a foster parent and president of the Arizona Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents, said boosting the foster-care subsidy for older children won't help retain foster families unless it's combined with better access to CPS workers and services.

"Foster parents say over and over again, the money is not a motivator. Somehow I wish that could translate into how CPS looks at its budget," Jacober said. "The more you invest in helping kids get what they need, the less foster parents you will lose and the better off the kids will be."

Group homes can be a combustible mix of children who arrive from detention and behavioral-health treatment centers and those removed from their parents because of alleged abuse or neglect.

Simon Kottoor, who runs Sunshine Residential and Group Homes, said he's opened six new 10-bed group homes since July at the request of the DES, and now runs 30 homes -- all of them consistently overbooked. "We are overloaded in every house," Kottoor said. "They definitely need more funding."

Kottoor estimated that about one-third of the kids in his homes should be in higher levels of care, such as a treatment center, and dozens of the children are only there because their families lack the basic necessities to care for them.

In the budget request, DES officials said they're developing a two-tiered response system to reduce the number of children removed from their homes, but aren't seeking additional funding for it. Arizona had such a system, with lower-level reports diverted to community non-profit agencies, but scrapped it primarily because of budget constraints.

In addition to ensuring that children are safe, child-welfare experts say the agency must work on getting kids out of the system more quickly and preventing others from ever entering it.

Reducing caseloads for CPS workers is a start, since it can give them more time to spend with families and connect them with the right services to prevent children from being placed in foster care, said Tonia Stott, a postdoctoral scholar at Arizona State University and a former CPS worker.

Brewer is expected to include all or part of the request in her budget proposal. House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said any budget increase relating to child safety "will be of the highest priority."

The fact that DES clearly states that it cannot effectively protect vulnerable children with current staff and resources should not be underestimated or ignored by lawmakers, Naimark said.

"When you have a state agency that is honestly telling you, 'We cannot keep up,' it's up to the people in power to respond," Naimark said. "That is an extremely serious statement. I would ask every legislator who's elected on November 6 to read that and take it seriously and to respond appropriately."

Requested budget increase

The Department of Economic Security is asking the state to increase its budget for the state's child-welfare agency, including:

$29.7 million to house a growing population of children in shelters and group homes.

$4.8 million to recruit, train and pay more foster families, including a per diem boost for homes that take older children.

$4.2 million to pay for an estimated 10 percent increase in adoptions and the per diem that goes with each child.

$10.7 million to hire 200 new CPS staff members, including 124 caseworkers, to maintain current workloads.